YCAS Biostatistics and BioInformatics

PURPOSE and SCOPE: The bioinformatics service is a function of YCAS which serves as the Biostatistics Shared Resource for Yale Cancer Center (YCC). It is a highly interactive team of cancer biostatisticians who work collaboratively with basic, clinical, translational and population science researchers to advance the frontiers of cancer medicine and public health. Yale Cancer Center (YCC), in conjunction with the Yale Center for Analytical Sciences (YCAS), provides for the biostatistical needs of the entire YCC.

The services encompass bioinformatics support to YCC members on study designs, analysis, and grant and manuscript preparations. We aim to provide high-quality, cutting-edge and custom data analyses, as well as consultation and training/education for high throughput genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and other high-throughput data sets.

The best mechanism for engaging the BSR is through percent effort inclusion on grants. Absent this, there are limitations on the number of hours that can be dedicated to any individual project. The following guidelines will be used to prioritize the utilization of the BSR and to ensure fair utilization by the entire research community at YCC.

PRIORITIES: The priorities listed below will be used to triage and prioritize which studies will be eligible for BSR utilization. BSR resources are available only to members and associate members of the YCC for cancer related projects.

(a) Top priority is given to members with peer-reviewed funding, peer-reviewed grant applications, investigator-initiated protocols being developed from Yale discoveries, PRC-approved clinical trials, and trials under development. (b) Second priority is given to members with non-peer-reviewed grants and clinical studies. (c) Lower priority is assigned to non-investigator initiated industry sponsored trials, unfunded laboratory studies, and retrospective database studies.

These priorities reflect the maximum number of hours that the biostatisticians may be able to dedicate to any particular project without compensation.

Utilization Limits

Efforts will be made to ensure parity of access for both basic, clinical, translational and population science projects. Nonetheless, limits on staffing may dictate that the scale of large jobs be capped. The size of such a cap will be determined by the BSR Oversight committee and is likely to change over time based on usage and staffing.

Currently, the guidelines for resources provided by YCC gratis will be as below. Additional resource hours will require funding by the investigator or by special approval by the BSR Committee through a special application. All investigators are entitled to receive a minimum of 16 hours per year. Limits are as below:

Grant preparation for NIH funding – as many hours as reasonably required to prepare the grant. More than 40 hours requires committee approval.

Unfunded analyses, including those for manuscript preparation – 16 hours total per investigator per year.

Investigator-initiated trials–16 hours for study design; as many hours as reasonably required (to be reviewed by the Oversight Committee) to monitor, analyze and publish the study.

Data Management Support

In addition to the support outlined above, support for data management for basic, clinical, translational and population science will be available through the BSR on a fee for service basis.

Publication Credit and External Funding

Standards for academic credit vary among research disciplines. For small-scale routine consultations, BSR does not expect authorship.

Reasonable expectations for larger projects must be guided by a sense of fairness and proportionality and community standards. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides consensus guidelines on publication credit http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf that can be used as a framework for publication credit discussions.

It is recommended that users of the resource have a direct discussion of these issues in the context of job specification discussions in early phases of the project so that a consensus can be achieved.

Fees

We provide supports for cancer-related projects. All Yale Cancer Center (YCC) members are entitled to receive free support for all non-billable services, and a maximum of 4 hours free support per year. Non-YCC members receive free support for non-billable activities, but need to pay for all billable activities. YCC members receive priority over nonmembers.

Non-billable activities: work on grant preparation, including analysis of pilot studies, provided the member of the YCAS Bioinformatics Core is written into the grant as percent FTE.

Billable activities: include all other services

Fees: $121/hour for FY15.

Time Estimation

The following estimation assumes no complications (e.g., quality issues) with the data. The actual analysis time heavily depends on data complexity.

Turn-around time will depend on the work load.

For sequencing data, the service is divided into two parts: hands-on time and computer time. The computer time is estimated with moderate coverage data based on an 8-CPU server. Actual computing time will vary from days to weeks depending on sequencing depth and server condition.

Modal Title

How will my information be used?

When you express interest in a specific study, the information from your profile will be sent to the doctor conducting that study. If you're eligible to participate, you may be contacted by a nurse or study coordinator.

If you select a health category rather than a specific study, doctors who have active studies in that area may contact you to ask if you would like to participate.

In both cases, you will be contacted by the preferred method (email or phone) that you specified in your profile.